She looked at Ferdinand, at Tino, at the queen: suddenly she threw back her head, and that lovely, childlike, silvery laughter rippled through the Teutonic din.
There was no scorn in her laughter, only the delicious, irresistible gaiety of a young girl face to face with the excruciating. And there is nothing on earth more innocently insolent.
Every Teuton head was turned toward her in stupefied displeasure; fishy, fixed, pig-like eyes stared at this young girl who dared condone an insult to Bulgaria with her fresh, impulsive laughter.
Suddenly behind me there was a brusque movement; I heard Tino protest that his foot had been trodden on; and, turning, I saw the queen excitedly rising from her place.
"I know who that woman is now!" she said in a voice as sharp as a blade. She pointed at Thusis like a vixen from the markets:
"That's The Laughing Girl!" she cried. "Look at her! Anybody can recognize her now from her photographs!"
Thusis colored crimson and shrank from the brutal publicity against my shoulder, staring wide-eyed at the hatefully sneering visage of the queen.
"The celebrated Laughing Girl!" repeated the queen mockingly; "Mr. O'Ryan's housekeeper, gentlemen—and our guest at dinner! And what does our German chivalry and nobility think of that insult launched at us by a Yankee inn-keeper?"
"Be silent, madame!" I said sharply. "If you don't know how to conduct yourself I shall request your husband to remove you!"
Then it came, the boche deluge!—a herd of huddling swine on their feet, all grunting at me, enraged, clamoring, waving their arms. And in the midst of the guttural uproar a thin, high voice pierced all sound and dominated it—the sniffling whine of Secretary Gizzler.